No I plan to soft cycle 50 or so lbs of LR for a month. I guess I should put some background in here, and let people know what I plan to do...
My plans for this tank have come about from some reading about live rock and the types of organisms that seem to 'pop-up'. I love the look of mixed reef and macro tanks, so that's what I'm going for, hopefully utilizing as much of the inherent life that is alive on the rocks when they get here as is possible. I realize I'll probably only use around 15 lbs of the rock in this setup; the rock in this setup will be soft-cycled with regular, small water changes (a couple times a day... I may set up a 'constant water change' system somehow that changes out a small amount of water constantly), with regular protein skimming and lights. I've decided that the tank will be dosed with phyto, to feed filter-feeding organisms that I may want to retain
This tank may never actually hold any stony corals, though I do plan on adding some zoas / palys, and eventually maybe an LPS (acans and micromussas are attractive options, if I have enough light). I will be building my tanks, main display 24l x 10w x 10h (about 10.4 gallons), upper display / sump / surge tank 14l x 10w x 10h (about 6 gallons), and possibly a small protein skimmer, which I will build if I can't get a good deal on one or find a good used one. I'm debating on making the display out of acrylic, the surge tank will be built from acrylic. I will be putting T5HO over the display (3 tubes, 24 watt each for a total of 73 watts), these will be attached to a wooden frame that will attach to the stand that the upper tank will sit on...
to say it doesn't quite convey what it will look like, and I'm not bothering with sketchup right now. I imagine it will look pretty ghetto, but I'll be doing my best to make it look presentable at least since it will be sitting in my living / fish room.
Now, as for the reason I say that this tank won't be ready for livestock in 6 months is, I'm not sure if I'll be ready for SPS in 6 months
. As far as finding good cured rock here, the thing is (as I've stated before) there isn't an LFS within 500 km of here. Let alone one that carries live rock (though Sasktoon is only 600 km away). So, I'm ordering from J & L, and the pieces that don't make it into the display will go into a 29 gallon and get soft cycled there, with only natural light. I want a Fu Manch Lionfish
EDIT: I never ended up doing this, I really wasn't patient enough.